Debate: where to land the cane, the hand or the seat?
The debate about where to land
the cane (the hands or the backside) rumbled on for as long as it continued to
be used in schools.
More than a hundred years ago
headmasters and headmistresses met in London to share views on the topic.
It was impossible to cane a
boy on his hand without bruising him, said one.
Others contended that if they
caned on that part which nature intended for the purpose, they left a weal, and
in the eyes of a magistrate a mark was a dreadful thing.
Here are two newspaper reports
from the time.
As published in
the Evening Express
(Liverpool, England), 19 March 1921.
As published in the
Tiverton Gazette (Devon, England), 22 February 1921.
Picture credit: The Rover
Traditional
School Discipline
Traditionalschooldiscipline@gmail.com
While I didn't appreciate it so much at the time I am very glad my school applied the cane or slipper to the backside and not the hand. Apart from being bent over meant you didn't have to face the teacher beating you, caning the hand has so much more risk of serious injury.
ReplyDeleteAlways fascinating when you post articles from so many years back which debated the merits of cp, which implements to use and even where to land the stroke, shows the debate went on for years before it was abolished and the fight against cp was not as recent as we may think.